


By Necessity, By Chance

by DreamingAmethystDragons



Series: Second Chances [1]
Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: AU: Ja'far is a dryad, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, First Meetings, Humor, M/M, Mythological AU, in which Sinbad's sense of adventure gets him in trouble yet again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8222470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingAmethystDragons/pseuds/DreamingAmethystDragons
Summary: Sinbad, a mountain climber.  Ja'far, a dryad.  "Two minutes in and I can already tell you that your stupid confidence will be the death of you one day - you're lucky I caught you."





	

Maybe it was the heady lack of oxygen at this altitude. Maybe it was the glints of the majority of his climbing equipment - or lack thereof, really - that he could see, oh, easily 150 feet below him. Either of those two things, honestly, could have been responsible for the laughter bubbling up in Sin's throat as he leans back further into the shelf of stone.

Beside him, his new companion and rescuer sighed. "Please tell me you aren't one of those humans who gets off on near-death experiences. If you say yes, I will throw you back down where I got you, stupid self-confidence be damned."

Sinbad looked over - not giggling, to his credit, but likely grinning like a loon - at the slight figure, eyes tracing delicate hands that belied the strength within them and the fragile interlocking of tiny leaves decorating the other's temples. "No, I'm not answering that until you buy me dinner." He hiccupped, waving an apologetic hand at the look of bewilderment that flits over grey eyes. "Er - human thing. I get my kicks from overcoming things like... mountains, and that, and not in the way you are thinking, I'm not implying that -" He pauses, exhales a breath. "No, I'm just... extremely grateful I didn't get down there hard way."

"You were close," the other agrees, leaning forward with a graceful lack of care for the height at which they're sitting. Sinbad's not afraid, but he's certainly not going to lean out like that, oh no. "Lucky you weren't a few feet more to the right, I don't know if I could have caught you then."

"Well." Sinbad gulps slightly, the recollection of the awful screeching sound his grappling hook had made and the sensation of plummeting before something had hooked around his waist sobering him up. "I am grateful." That'll teach him to triple check his equipment next time.

Sinbad glances over again, finding grey eyes meeting his gaze. "You are... a dryad, right?" Like out of the Greek myths. If only Yamu could see this right now. "I've never seen anything like you before."

A sigh. "That... Is not what we call ourselves, but yes, you can call me one. My name is Ja'far," he introduces, pausing until Sin hastily gives his own name in reply. "Most of my kind don't materialize outside of their hosts." He grins, but it is a mocking twist of his lips rather than a genuine smile. "Apparently, I'm too... flighty, to impatient. I spend a lot of time wandering and watching." 

That first part, honestly, sounds as though he were quoting someone, and not someone inclined to kindness.

Sinbad curls his left hand around an outcropping of stone. Dryads, right. "Are there other kinds of spirits, then? Other things that humans call myths?" Jeez, he didn't mean to sound insensitive - Ja'far was real, after all - but he always had been chided about where his curiosity takes him.

Luckily, Ja'far doesn't seem to mind, if the smirk means anything. "Not telling. You're going to have to find that out on your own, human Sinbad." He tilts his head. "Preferably without killing yourself, but if that floats your boat..."

"Oh, stoooop." It's childish, but, well - Sinbad feels comfortable enough to joke with the dryad, so that's something. That could be the start of a great friendship, nevermind that Ja'far lived on the vertical face of a mountain, he'd gotten here once and he could do it again. He looks over at the sapling sitting on Ja'far's other side - maybe six feet tall if even, slightly hunched, as though its every effort was concentrated on hooking its roots even deeper into the stone. "So is that your... host?"

Ja'far raises a hand to the leaves in his hair, then reaches out to the tree - and if Sinbad's eyes aren't deceiving him, the tree reaches back, leaves shimmering in the breeze. "I don't tell you this lightly. A tree is a dryad's soul, just as we are a manifestation of the minds of trees that quickened enough to grow curious enough about the world around them... but, yes." He touches the trunk like one might touch the shoulder of an old friend. "It is lonely, stranded far away like the others like this."

Ah. There's silence between them for a moment as Sin pictures how that tree may have gotten here - a seed carried on the wind? Dropped down from the trees at the top of the cliff maybe 200 feet above him? He thinks about the improbability of a tree growing here. That it did is strangely revitalizing, like a warm voice whispering in his ear.

He looks down, then cranes his head back up. If he can get up there, he can find less treacherous paths down the mountain - but he's going to need help, if that's the case. He bobs his head, then smiles crookedly as the dryad looks back at him. "Any chance you can help me get up there?" 

Ja'far looks up too, then at Sin with a raised eyebrow. "What do I get out of it?"

"Um..."

"Kidding." Ja'far stands and turns, back facing the gap behind them. "Do you know how to get down to your kind again?"

"Approximately."

"... So you'd be a bit lost."

"I could do it, it just... might take me a bit longer than usual, is all." Most of his equipment fell with his flailing around. He couldn't fault Ja'far for that; he still had his backpack, at least. "Unless that's an offer to show me?"

"I can only go so far from my host, Sinbad."

"So that's a yes?"

Ja'far looks both amused and exasperated; it's an expression Sin has pulled from a good many people. "I suppose. But I'm not catching your ass if you fall again."

"That's fair."

Hardly has he spoken then something is coiling around his chest. A tree root picks him up, almost effortlessly, and he sees others poke through the mountain above him, forming a series of handholds. Absently, he wonders if that is all Ja'far's doing, or if other trees - other dryads - are helping. He wonders how he could thank them. He places his hands against the roots lifting him and turns his head just in time to watch Ja'far nimbly climb up to his place. When he pauses at eye level, the wind curls at Sinbad's hair. 

"I can climb too, you know," he protests, jokingly. "I've only fallen once."

Ja'far snorts. "Better safe than sorry, human. Besides, if I fall, I am part of this mountain. I am the air, I am the earth. But you are mortal flesh and blood."

That's strangely sweet. Sinbad gives him a thumbs up, smiling. "Meet you at the top?"

"This isn't a race; we'll get there at the same time."

"Nonetheless," Sinbad reaches over on impulse and brushes the side of his hand past the small leaves that cover Ja'far's temples, brushes aside a lock of white hair. "Thank you." It's as sincere as he can inject into his voice and actions.

Ja'far looks at him a long moment. When he turns back, there's a strange expression on his face - do dryads blush? "Thank me later, you fool."

Sinbad looks back at that tree, standing so steadfast, so valiantly on the brink of where nothing would grow. That's a sight he won't forget. "That implies that I'll be seeing you later. And trust you me," when Ja'far glances at him again, "I would like to."

"Then," and that tone is teasing, can't not be teasing, "You'd better be buying me dinner later."

"Cross my heart," and Sinbad laughs as the sun caresses his face. "It's a date."

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from my tumblr account.  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
